In 2015-16, Talia Greene’s site-specific artwork, called Passage, was installed in the Morris-Jumel Mansion in Washington Heights, upper Manhattan, New York. Greene’s work takes us on a journey back in environmental time. Her artwork, a wall mural that was installed in the main stairwell of the mansion, maps the unfolding impact of urban expansion on what was Manhattan Island's animal and forest habitat.

 

Reflected in Greene’s mural is the metaphorical ‘tipping point’ during a period of intense urban expansion as the city's gridded road networks began to encroach upon the 'rural' location of the house from the 1860s to the turn of the century. The main theme of the mural traces the consequent demise of the Passenger Pigeon, once one of the the most numerous birds on the continent. The Passenger Pigeon had decreased drastically in number to become extinct by 1914. On the lower ground floor, the mural’s central motif is the expanding city grid of Manhattan in 1832. As one moves up the stairs to the second floor of the mansion, motifs of flora and fauna dominate. These motifs reference the birds and wildlife that were populous when the Mansion was built in 1756, surrounded then by forest, marshes, and some settler farmlands.

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The Tree Museum interviewed Greene about the research that informed the development of her artwork and her exploration of the intersection of urbanization and animal extinctions. We discuss the phenomenon of the 'tipping point' and also reflect on the colonial context of the Morris-Jumel Mansion and its claims in relation to the territorial dispossession of the Leni Lenape Nation. 

 

Talia Greene resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She received her BA from Wesleyan University and her MFA from Mills College.  She is currently an Assistant Adjunct Professor at University of the Arts (Philadelphia).